Age of Empires has been one of the unsung heroes in the world of DS strategy games. Age of Empires: Age of Kings released almost exactly two years ago, in November of 2006, and since then the series has switched developers, switched publishers, but kept the same turn-based design and incredible economy system that it had back in 2006.
This time around, it's all about beefing up the experience, and developer Griptonite Games has done an amazing job of taking the reins of the Age of Empires series and doing just that. Players take control of three different cultures, including Greek, Egyptian, and Norse, including multiple hero units for each, and gods that can be prayed to for uber-attacks on the battlefield. The general gameplay feels nearly identical to what it did last time around, playing out more like a game of Advance Wars than classic Age of Empires, but there's an insane amount of depth to explore. Each of the three cultures play unique from each other, with different units for each including things like camelry, and unique new myth units such as Sphynx, scorpion men, or scarabs.
What has always made the Age of Empires series impressive, and it carried over to DS the first time around (and again now), is the franchise's attention to economy, and the concept of "aging up" from time period to time period. While you may only have the technology to train spearmen at first, you'll soon gain more technology for stronger militia. On-foot archers become horse-clad chariots, and siege weaponry is developed hand-in-hand with the town's evolution, so as long as you research and age up, you'll be decades ahead of the competition, hitting them with superior firepower while they putter around their pre-wheel cavemen camps.
Not only do players have the main cultures to learn about, ages to research, and the constant balance of food, gold, buildings (for a full-on tech system), and hero units, but also relics which can be used to assign heroes and gain more boosts for your biggest powerhouses on the field. Relics can include anything from faster hero power regeneration, more attack power, higher hit points, or the like, and more relics can be unlocked for play within the game's store. Of course you've also got the balance system included this time around, so certain units are stronger and weaker compared to others, so a reliance on heroes alone won't win you battles. It's a very strategic, extremely diverse experience, be it in the form of building, aging up, supporting crop fields with extra farms (or on the flipside, adding more gold mines around a specific dig site), or destroying random NPC characters across the map to gain more relics which power your team.
The god power system is also another new addition this time around, allowing heroes the ability to build obelisks which honor specific gods in the game. Based on the god you assign, you can research abilities for them to execute in game. This includes everything from a blizzard, smashing tidal wave, or swarm of locus to wipe out enemy farms. Now not only can you research better gear for your specific units, upgrade global tech levels which include more HP or defense for units, but also power up your affinity of god abilities, letting you destroy the competition in even more diverse ways. Of course each research ability costs cash, food, and/or god points, and since only one can be researched per turn, even more strategy goes into deciding exactly how you're going to execute on the battlefield. It's a much deeper experience overall.
Where we really hit the game the first time around on DS was in the battle visuals, and the lack of online multipayer. Both have been addressed this time around, and it makes for a much stronger offering overall. In-game visuals have gotten a huge bump, now with stronger models for battle animations and on-field movement, the interface is much more appealing, now with a polished Mythologies theme from the original PC game, as well as concept art and scrolling backdrops throughout the menus, and more diversity in the in-game levels, including snow, rain, desert, fields, and the like. Where the last game was "good despite its visuals," this one is made stronger due to the visual look.
Multiplayer, as we noted above, has also become a much larger offering, now including not only online, but also hot seat multiplayer (trade the DS around from person to person), a full-on wireless mode for people with multiple copies of the game, and a wireless DS download mode as well. This is a huge offering for DS's multiplayer games this year, and one of the more robust multiplayer games on the system. To add to the experience , you can also have AI join in during multiplayer matches, make use of any heroes, gods, unlocked relics, and maps when playing any type of match, and unlock a huge list of added content just from playing the game and buying them from the store. The unlockables section includes 12 new maps, three additional heroes not found in regular multiplayer, 18 new relics to power up heroes, and nine additional gods for multiplayer play, all of which are unlocked using a "myth point" system. In addition, single and multiplayer gamers alike can gain points for the 33 in-game achievements, which include everything from finishing tutorials to beating the full single player campaigns with each culture, or dominating online. This is one of the most robust DS games out there.
Verdict
Age of Empires: Age of Kings released two years ago, and it has since been an unsung hero on DS. Now we’ve got the sequel out, complete with a new publisher, new developer, and expanded design. The end result? A game that rivals that of Advance Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2, and Disgaea. Age of Empires has returned to DS, and with it comes more units, more strategy, just as strong of an economy system, and even more to explore within the package. Multi-card multiplayer, single card multiplayer, hot seat play, Wi-Fi, three campaigns, achievements, over 40 unlockables, and 24 maps. The battle animations are stronger this year, the overall visuals have received a significant bump, there’s more VO, and far more to see and do within the game. Age of Empires: Mythologies is indisputably one of the most robust, rewarding, and entertaining strategy games on DS. It needs to be supported, and it deserves to succeed. We hope to see the series back again on DS, complete with more than three playable cultures, more customization (map editor?) and even more of what has made this series great. Until then, we’ve got more than enough to see and do in Mythologies.
